It’s Hard to Have a Productive Conversation With a Remote

“TV power,” I said to the foot-long metal wand. And my TV turned on.

It was a glorious moment, as exhilarating as the rush you get the first time you turn the bedroom light off by clapping. But the satisfaction proved just as short-lived.

The source of my excitement was a programmable remote control from InVoca that promised to let me rule my home entertainment gear with spoken commands. Soon after loading the device with batteries, I had trained it to turn my TV set on or off each time I said “TV power” into its microphone.

I’d hoped to use the InVoca to replace the half-dozen remotes scattered around my home, but I quickly discovered that the device was much better on paper than in plastic. As it turns out, the same could be said for every programmable remote I’ve tried, including ones from Sony, Philips and Universal.

That’s because there’s no easy way to control all the functions of a home entertainment center--the TV, stereo, audio and video recorders, DVD and cable or satellite box--with a simple, intuitive remote. The devices do too much and have too little in common to yield to a single master.

You’d think that the folks who spawned all these things--the TV and stereo manufacturers--would come up with a solution. Instead, they’re making the problem harder and harder to solve by loading their products with new features.

So the makers of so-called universal remotes are left with three choices: They could focus on a few core functions or devices and leave the more arcane activities to the original remotes. They could cram dozens of buttons onto an elongated wand to control the range of selecting, playing, programming and recording functions. Or they could replace the buttons with something more flexible--spoken commands, say.

The least expensive remotes take Option No. 1. For $30 or less, you can find a universal remote capable of controlling the basic functions of many TVs, VCRs, cable boxes and stereos. The main risk with these gadgets is that the pre-programmed codes won’t match the gear in your home.

How big a risk? That depends on the age and variety of devices in your living room. The consumer electronics industry has completely shanked the issue of remote-control codes. Not only is there no standard across brands--each TV manufacturer, for example, has a different code for changing channels, turning the power on or off, adjusting the volume, etc.--but manufacturers often have different codes for different models.

The alternative is buying a “learning,” or programmable, remote. These typically cost upward of $50. Although it’s easy to program these things, the amount of time it takes is soul-sapping. If your gear doesn’t respond perfectly to one of the pre-programmed sets of codes, you’ll have to teach the remote how to do what you want it to do--button by button.

Naturally, there are only so many buttons on a universal remote. Even a large one like the Sony RM-VL900, which is designed to control as many as eight devices, doesn’t have room for all the specialty functions found on today’s gear, such as “favorite channels,” “skip disc,” “random” or “preset stations.”

You can assign those functions to any button on the remote, but then you’d have to remember which buttons correspond to which features on each device. Maybe you’ll just keep a cheat sheet near your remote or wear a wristband marked with instructions, like some quarterbacks do to remember the plays.

A third kind of remote uses virtual buttons and touch screens that can be reconfigured to match the needs of each device. Examples include the MX-1000 Home Theater Master from Universal Remote Control Inc., the Sony RM-AV2100 and the Philips Pronto series.

Where these devices fall short is in the execution. With the elegant Philips Pronto and the sleek Home Theater Master, the screens aren’t large enough to present all the controls you might need to use in quick succession. Programming a VCR, for example, means shuttling between the menu page, the numbers page and the cursors page. The screen on the Sony is larger, but the pre-programmed layouts of virtual buttons don’t always give you the right choices.

The nice thing about these remotes is that their screens can be customized. They also enable you to consolidate multiple steps into a single push of a button--for example, turning the amplifier, TV, cable box and VCR on or off simultaneously. But again, how much time do you want to invest in programming a remote?

Universal Remote, at least, recognizes that the typical consumer has better things to do with his or her time. The company sells the MX-1000 mainly through high-end audio dealers that program the remotes for their buyers.

Which brings us back to the InVoca, whose voice-activated approach promised to overcome all the annoying limitations of other remotes. The model tested could control as many as four devices and recognize as many as 54 voice commands from as many as four users.

Fabulous concept. But voice recognition isn’t as reliable as a plastic button, and there’s nothing more annoying than having to say a command four or five times before anything happens. And that’s the basic problem with the InVoca--when you talk to your remote, you want it to pay attention.

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Times staff writer Jon Healey covers the digital living room.